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Manfred II
| died = | father = Helmut | mother = Ursula von Plettenburg | siblings = Wolfram von Goldenbaum | marital-status = Unmarried }} Manfred von Goldenbaum II was the 27th kaiser of the Galactic Empire. He narrowly avoided assassination in his youth and was forced to go into exile in the Free Planets Alliance, for which Manfred became known as "The Exiled." Afterwards he returned to the Empire to take the throne, attempting to make reforms and initiated the Fezzan Peace Summit with the FPA. However, his reign only lasted barely a year before he was assassinated. While on the surface the perpetrators appeared to be reactionary high nobles, rumors circulated that the Dominion of Fezzan was behind the assassination. Biography Early life (far left) and Wolfram (far right).]] Manfred II von Goldenbaum was born on 14 May , to the 26th kaiser of the Empire, Helmut, and one of his many concubines, Ursula von Plettenburg. Due to his mother's identity, Manfred was not initially expected to inherit the throne. He had an older half brother, Wolfram von Goldenbaum, who was also a son of the kaiser, but his mother was Helmut's wife. Due to both his age and his mother's status, Wolfram was in line to succeed Helmut. Manfred was ambitious and calculating from a young age, however, and the two developed an intense rivalry during their youth. But it was clear that Wolfram was the favorite of the Imperial court, being supported by Duke Ottokar von Aschbach and Count August Hedwig von Rastenfeld. Nonetheless, the young noble was not idle, and had grandiose ambitions of becoming the 'savior' of the Empire. In , at the age of nineteen, Manfred began forming a clique of fellow nobles that supported his ideas of reforming the government to root out corruption and inefficiency that plagued it for so long. However, in September of the following year, an unexpected event occurred: Crown Prince Wolfram was killed while inspecting fleet maneuvers at the Imperial end of the Iserlohn Corridor. An Alliance task force raided the starzone in which the maneuvers were occurring. During the attack, the Imperial fleet was taken completely by surprise and was unable to effectively respond, with Wolfram's flagship being destroyed. The incident shocked the Imperial court, including Manfred, who became the Crown Prince due to being Helmut's only remaining son. The hatred for him among some of the high nobles increased as a result of his unexpected rise. Initially, Grand Duke Aschbach and his clan believed that Manfred was not a real threat to them, but now the possibility of him becoming the next kaiser was high. Aschbach, Rastenfeld, and their supporters started a rumor that Manfred leaked information on Wolfram's presence close to the Iserlohn Corridor to the Alliance. That was not true, but many wanted to believe it and did so, further alienating the new Crown Prince from the Imperial court. In November , Manfred II was attending a festival on Odin when a platoon of Imperial soldiers attacked him and his entourage. His Imperial Guards successfully fought off the attack, and an investigation by the Military Police found that the soldiers were private troops of Count Rastenfeld. Manfred was surprised by the audacity of the Aschbach–Rastenfeld axis in organizing an open attack, and, believing that he could not remain in the Empire any longer, decided to escape to the Free Planets Alliance. On 6 December 698 UC, the Crown Prince, along with a number of his supporters, passed through the Fezzan Corridor in an Imperial cruiser and defected to the Alliance. Living in exile The FPA government and pro-peace political groups welcomed the arrival of Manfred, who was greeted by the Chairman of the Alliance Supreme Council, Tang Heng-Zong. The Crown Prince and his followers arrived on the capital, Heinessen, where they set up a court-in-exile. They did not intend to start a government-in-exile, instead planning to return to their homeland after Helmut's death to take the throne. During his time there, Manfred became politically active, spending most of making connections and planning. He began organizing a 'shadow government' which would take the place of the current cabinet in the Empire upon his return, appointing his followers to different offices. Additionally, Manfred made contact with different pacifist groups and politicians in the Alliance. In return for their hospitality, and believing the Alliance–Imperial War to be futile, Manfred decided that he would recognize the FPA as a sovereign nation and make peace with them upon taking the Imperial throne. Among those who defected with Manfred, the most prominent became Carl Gustav von Friedeburg, Leopold von Blumenthal, Ernst Vincent von Pannwitz, Arthur von Schönfeld, Felix von Walden, and Otto Ferdinand von Horstenau. With the exceptions of Schönfeld and Walden, the group mainly consisted young men under the age of thirty, and the Crown Prince decided that their 'clan' would become the next generation of Imperial leaders that would reform the Empire. He and the others spent their time making political connections as well as attending Alliance universities to improve their knowledge. Manfred, realizing his lack of military talents, gained permission of Chairman Walter Prentiss (Heng-Zong's successor) to attend the Free Planets Alliance Officer Academy in April . Although he went to an FPA military institution, Manfred was also granted permission to not wear Alliance emblems or rank insignia on his cadet uniform, as he considered wearing a foreign symbol unpatriotic. While at the Academy, Manfred von Goldenbaum was accepted into the Strategic Studies Department, which was one of the school's most prestigious institutes. He proved to be a skilled strategist and competent tactician, performing well in the battle simulators. Manfred did not keep his identity a secret and thus earned the ire of some of his fellow cadets who were Alliance patriots and did not want to have an Imperial, much less the heir-apparent of the Goldenbaum Dynasty, be taught at their institution. They did not see the point of training the person whom they viewed as a future enemy, though Manfred thought that it was understandable since they did not know of his intent to sign a peace treaty with the FPA upon rising to power. Along with tactics and strategy, Manfred also learned the basics of other fields, including astrophysics, navigation, and starship engineering. Out of his class of forty cadets, Manfred graduated in eighth place in June . During his graduation ceremony, on 28 June 704 UC, the exiled noble became an acquaintance of Al Altaf, a pacifist politician from the Popular Coalition who intended to run in the next election. Al Altaf was there to meet future Alliance military leaders and to forge connections with them. The two aspiring heads of state of their countries spoke to each other about politics and found themselves agreeing on a lot of issues, including the idea of bringing an end to the Alliance–Imperial War. Operation Rudolf Meanwhile, back in the Empire, Grand Duke Aschbach and his followers were busy consolidating their power. They knew that the elderly Kaiser Helmut, who was by then in ill health, did not have much time left on the throne. However, the Kaiser consistently refused their pressure to renounce his son's claim to the throne. As Aschbach did not possess complete support in the Imperial court, having other rivals, the Grand Duke sought to solidify his position with a major military victory over the Alliance. If successful, it could possibly result in the conquest of the Alliance, strengthen his support among the military's upper echelon, and improve his image among the Imperial people. At the same time, he picked the young Wilhelm von Littenheim, a distant relative of the Goldenbaum Dynasty, as a potential puppet emperor if he managed to gain total control. After talks with Fleet Admiral Wilhelm von Falkenhausen, the Space Fleet Commander, the War Ministry was convinced to agree to his plan for a full-scale invasion of the Alliance. Kaiser Helmut gave his tacit support to the operation. In November , preparations for the mobilization began, with some 8 million troops and 65,000 ships and taking part. However, Manfred's sympathizers in the court leaked the information through Fezzan to the exiled Crown Prince. After discussing it with his exiled supporters, Manfred decided to report it to Alliance Fleet Intelligence and Chairman Prentiss. On December 2 of that year, it was revealed that Grand Duke Aschbach would personally lead the invasion of the Alliance. On January 8, , the preparations were complete and the Imperial Fleet began its march through the Iserlohn Corridor. The Alliance began mobilizing in response, and Prentiss asked Manfred to assist the Alliance by providing information and insight on the Imperial Fleet's tactics, technology, and leaders. The Crown Prince initially wanted to refuse, saying that he would not do anything that would take the lives of Imperial servicemen, but several of his supporters got him to reconsider. Friedeburg and Blumenthal, noted by Manfred as being his most FPA-friendly advisers, both urged him to do it, since the fleet was led by Aschbach personally, and there would be a chance to kill him, as well as to gain political leverage with the Alliance government. Military adviser Otto Ferdinand von Horstenau, the captain of the Imperial cruiser that brought them to the Alliance, also urged it, as he wanted to go into battle after being away from the front for so long. Finally, on January 15, Manfred agreed to go with the Alliance forces to assist them. Departing aboard the Alliance supreme flagship Victory, Crown Prince Manfred was present at the resulting engagement that would become known as the Battle of the Corridor. The two fleets clashed on January 26, with the fighting initially being at a stalemate. However, after two failed Imperial offensives, the Empire took much heavier losses than the Alliance, resulting in a withdrawal on February 2. Manfred identified Aschbach's flagship, but it remained towards the rear of the Imperial formation and thus could not be targeted with artillery fire. After the victory, the Star Fleet returned to Alliance territory. Final days in the FPA A week of celebrations occurred throughout the Alliance, but Manfred and his colleagues did not take part in any of it, well aware that it was their own nation that was defeated. The Crown Prince felt a bit ashamed for having assisted the Alliance in the battle, but convinced himself that it was necessary to prevent Aschbach and his faction from taking control of the Empire. News arriving from his homeland via Fezzan confirmed that his father, Helmut, was growing weaker and expected to live for only another couple of years. In the political fallout resulting in the aftermath of the major defeat for the Empire, Aschbach managed to prevent himself from losing too much support by shifting the blame on Admiral Edmund Reymann and other subordinates. The Grand Duke used this as an excuse to purge officers whom he suspected of not being loyal to him. Most of the following two years were spent in preparation for Manfred's return to the Empire. He and his group of exiles began more actively communicating with their contacts back home to begin establishing a solid political base. Despite the high nobles' attempt to block out information regarding the exiled Crown Prince, information about his plans still got through to the Imperial populace thanks to his sympathizers in the nobility. Manfred's ideas for reforms and seeking peace with the Alliance became popular among the people, many of whom had grown tired of the current state of the Goldenbaum Empire. The Alliance government, in particular pro-pacifist politicians such as Al Altaf, continued to support the exiles and praised his plans of ending the war. On February 19, , Manfred received news that his father died. After a couple days of mourning, the Imperial exiles departed Heinessen, their home for the last several years, aboard the cruiser Harzburg, which originally brought them to the Alliance. Entering the Fezzan Corridor, they passed trough it and entered Imperial space. The officers of an Imperial border patrol squadron they ran into supported Manfred, and provided him an escort to Odin. Return to the Empire Immediately upon his arrival on the Imperial throne world, Manfred was greeted by cheering crowds, including mainly commoners and lesser nobles. Due to his time in the Alliance, the people assumed that the new kaiser would bring peace to the galaxy and reform the Empire. One of his first acts was to reform the Imperial Guard, to create a loyal forces capable of defending him from the many threats that sought to prevent his reform plan. Manfred also appointed a new cabinet from among the exiles that returned with him, but allowed his father's prime minister, Hans Joachim von Hohenstaufen, to remain in his office for the time being, as he was neutral regarding the new kaiser's policies. On March 12, the kaiser set up the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which managed relations with not only Fezzan but also beginning diplomatic relations with the Alliance. He appointed Leopold von Blumenthal as the first Imperial foreign minister. As he suspected, many in the high aristocracy denounced the new reforms. The Social Discipline Office (led by a Manfred supporter, Johann von Braunschweig) had the kaiser's old enemy, Ottokar von Aschbach, found guilty of attempting to assassinate him when he was the crown prince. Aschbach fled to his territory, where he used his duchy security forces to protect himself. Manfred appointed a young officer, Admiral Denis von Holtzendorff, to crush his rebellion. Other than Aschbach and his clique, ther were other high nobles that had not committed any crimes, but were nonetheless against the kaiser's new order. They also were disgusted by Manfred's proclamation that a peace summit would begin on Fezzan between the Empire and the Alliance. On the domestic front, Manfred immediately issued new decrees that gave the commoners more rights and limited the powers of the aristocracy. These were well-received among the people, but only alienated the high nobility even further. On March 27, the kaiser made history by welcoming the first Alliance ambassador to the Empire on Odin, Vito Trotha. An FPA embassy was opened not far from Neue Sanscouci, the Imperial palace. These developments also disturbed Marko Károlyi, the Landesherr of Fezzan, and his secret masters in the Terraist Church. Manfred posed a threat to their goal of continuing the state of war between the two great powers and profiting from it. Károlyi began to explore options of assassinating the new kaiser. Internal squabbles The Peace Summit Legacy Personal life Appendices External links *Manfred II on Gineipaedia, the LOGH Wiki Background information The name Manfred was derived from the Germanic elements magan ("strength") and frid ("peace"). Category:Kaisers Category:Imperial citizens Category:Politicians Category:Nobility Category:Featured articles